A Mother's Gift (Love Inspired)

by James, Arlene

  Chapter Three

  “Look at this,” Sam said, handing a long-stemmed pink rose to each of the women. “In honor of Mother’s Day. Now, this is a classy restaurant.”

  Dixie made herself accept the flower. Sam was a man’s man, a little rough and rugged, who wouldn’t know class if it smacked him in the face with those roses, but he loved her mother, her and Clark with every fiber of his being. He could never understand why she’d like to dash that rose to the floor and stomp it, especially as she adored everything about being a mother. Still, she could not forget that, were it not for her, Mark would be here now enjoying this time in their son’s life.

  “No, no, Clark.” The sound of her son’s name spoken in Joel Slade’s voice jarred Dixie. She whirled around to find Clark standing with his hands pressed flat against a large fish tank set into the rock wall of the restaurant’s waiting area. Joel crouched beside him, speaking softly. “Tapping on a fish tank isn’t good for the fish.”

  “He was just patting it,” Dixie defended, rushing over to take her son by the hand.

  Joel pushed up to his full height. Somehow, he seemed more imposing sightless than he might have otherwise. “If I could hear it from across the way,” he said, nodding to the bench where their mothers now sat chatting, “then it must have been deafening to the fish on the other side of that glass.”

  Dixie lifted her chin. “I imagine your hearing is more acute than normal. At least, that’s what I understand happens with—” She bit her lip, her flimsy outrage waning in the heat of her embarrassment.

  “Blind people,” he finished for her. “You can say it, you know.”

  Uncomfortable, Dixie cast a glance at her father’s back. He rocked on his heels in front of Vonnie and Bess in the increasingly crowded waiting area. She edged closer to Joel, Clark’s hand in hers to prevent him from tapping on the fish tank again. She knew that she had overreacted. “I—I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

  “You’re right, by the way,” he interrupted cheerfully. “The loss of one sense does sharpen others. You begin to figure it out as soon as the initial panic is over. You start to realize how much sensory information you blocked out before.”

  Dixie smiled, realizing that he had intentionally derailed her apology. “It must have been terribly confusing at first.”

  “Yes, disorienting. Right after the explosion, I couldn’t tell where I was, who was with me, what was happening. It was almost sensory overload, but all that seemed to matter was that I couldn’t see. I had to get past that, accept it, before I could learn to decipher what my ears, nose and skin cells were telling me.”

  “It was an explosion, then?” Dixie prodded gently.

  Joel nodded as casually as if they were discussing the weather. “IED on the side of the road in Iraq. The driver lost his leg, and the others took some shrapnel, but we were blessed not to lose lives.”

  “Blessed,” Dixie parroted. “How can you say that?”

  Joel shrugged. With his hands clasped behind his back and his legs spread, he looked every inch the Marine. “Soldiers deployed into war are putting their lives on the line every day. You learn to approach each moment as if that is the moment you’ll be called upon to make the ultimate sacrifice. I could have lost my life that day, as have so many others. Instead, all that was required of me was my eyesight. Doesn’t seem such a terrible thing by comparison.”

  Dixie cleared her throat, suddenly moved, and asked in a soft voice, “Didn’t you ever ask, ‘Why me?’” She had. From time to time over the past fourteen months, in one way or another, she had railed at God, demanding to know why her husband had to die. “It’s just so unfair,” she whispered.

  “Why not me?” Joel asked. “Might as well be me as anyone else. I look at it this way. If Christ, Who was unfairly crucified, could go to the cross without complaint, how can I stay angry about this?”

  “But if Christ had not gone willingly to the cross, He wouldn’t have been the perfect, redemptive sacrifice,” Dixie pointed out.

  “If I hadn’t gone willingly into the military, I wouldn’t have been on that road in Iraq. Jesus didn’t regret His sacrifice in the service of humanity. I can’t regret my sacrifice in the service of my country. Not that the two equate in value,” he quickly qualified, “or that I’m happy about losing my sight or that I didn’t have some selfish reasons for joining up.”

  “Such as?”

  “Pride. Career. College tuition.”

  “You have every reason to be proud,” she said. “I’m sorry about your career.”

  Joel grinned and lifted a hand to the small of her back just as the hostess appeared. “There’s still that college tuition.”

  “Wallace, party of six.”

  Dixie bowed her head and clutched her son’s hand, feeling small and selfish for her own lingering anger at Mark’s death. Obviously, God was showing her that she was not the only one to have suffered loss, and that her attitude about it still needed some adjustment.

  After following her parents and Bess through the busy restaurant, Dixie took a seat across the table from Joel, with Clark in his booster seat at the end, more or less between them. While Dixie kept Clark busy and glanced over her own menu, Bess quietly read from hers to Joel. Eventually, drinks were brought and choices were made. In the conversation that followed, they touched upon several topics. Then Vonnie asked Joel about his future plans.

  Dixie was surprised to learn that he intended to practice law, and that he was far closer to attending law school than she could have imagined. He had been taking classes by computer for eighteen months and was, in fact, still doing so. During the upcoming summer semester at the local university, he would take the LSAT, but thanks to his military service and the efforts of an influential former commanding officer, he was already guaranteed a spot at the law school of his choice, provided his LSAT scores weren’t an embarrassment and he kept his final grades up.

  They talked about that until the meal came. They all bowed their heads while Sam spoke a blessing over the food. Dixie added her own quick, silent prayer.

  Okay, Lord. I get it. Thank You. I understand now, and it will be different. I’ve been wallowing around in self-pity here for more than a year while others were facing their losses with courage and faith. I guess it took Joel Slade to show me that.

  Surely that was the reason for her dreams and their encounters in the park and today. That and only that.

  She lifted her head and looked straight into Joel’s sightless eyes. The eerie feeling that he knew what she was thinking crept over her. She shook her head at her own foolishness at the same time as she shook out her napkin.

  Clark dined off her plate and the table bread, but he routinely engaged Joel throughout the meal and vice versa. The two made a game of shifting around the saltshaker, and Dixie was amazed by how accurately Joel could track it. Sam had arranged for birthday cake to be served, much to Clark’s delight, and Joel even seemed to relish Clark’s enjoyment of his dessert.

  “Man, he really loves chocolate, doesn’t he?”

  “Does he ever!” Sam confirmed, using his finger to swipe up the last vestige of chocolate frosting from his own plate. “Can’t imagine where he got that.” Everyone laughed when Sam popped his finger into his mouth.

  The waiter soon returned with the check, and Joel instantly began digging out his wallet.

  “I insist on paying for Mom’s lunch,” he announced. “My Mother’s Day gift for her. And Dixie’s,” he went on, turning his face in her direction, “because Clark isn’t old enough yet to honor her in that way.”

  A hot thrill shot through Dixie, a mixture of longing fulfilled and longing forever denied. The very fact that it had visited both shocked and alarmed her.

  “No!” she blurted, bringing every eye at the table to her. How ironic that the sightless eyes were the ones to slice her composure to shreds. “I—I mean…this is Mom’s day.”

  “It is,” Joel agreed quietly, leaning forward slig
htly, “but there are two other mothers at this table.”

  To her horror, Dixie felt the burn of tears. Suddenly angry, she pushed back her chair, muttering, “I don’t want to celebrate this day for myself.”

  “Dixie,” Vonnie pleaded.

  “I can’t!” Dixie exclaimed. “Not when Mark will never celebrate another Father’s Day.” She shot to her feet. “I believe I’ll visit the ladies’ room. Excuse me, please.”

  She never noticed the rose that fell from her lap to the floor. Why would she, when she didn’t want it? Then again, she didn’t want to like Joel Slade, either, and she didn’t.

  She wouldn’t.

  “Joe!”

  Joel smiled, shifting on the slatted bench. Finally, his persistence had paid off.

  He’d sat in the warm sunshine, enjoying the mild spring weather and listening to a lecture on tape, for what felt like hours. The lecture, in fact, had long since ended, but Joel hadn’t been able to make himself leave. He didn’t know why, really. He had no reason to think that Dixie would welcome another encounter with him.

  Dinner had ended awkwardly on Sunday, to say the least. After he’d offered to buy her meal, Dixie had avoided him like the plague, and he had no expectation of things being different now just because a couple days had passed. Yet, he’d come to the park on Monday and Tuesday and again today, lingering longer each time.

  Even as he told himself that it was useless to remain, he heard the scruff of gravel and an agitated whisper that made his breath seize. Dixie. He knew it. Would she ignore him? She wouldn’t have dared if he was sighted, but some people considered his blindness permission to simply pretend that he didn’t exist. The sound of running feet had him sitting forward in anticipation.

  “Clark?”

  “Joe!”

  He almost didn’t get his arms out in time to catch the boy, as Clark seemed to launch himself from a dead run. Joel laughed in sheer delight, feeling those little arms slide about his neck.

  “Hey, little buddy! How are you?” Shifting the boy to a sitting position on his lap, Joel rubbed Clark’s head, loving the feel of all those springy curls.

  “Joe,” Clark burbled, “the tree still on my swing.”

  “It is? How did that happen?”

  “The storm did it so it come down, and it’s on my swing. Pop-Pop has to fix it.”

  “Is that right? Well, I’m sure your Pop-Pop can take care of it.”

  “Yeah,” Clark said confidently. “Want to swing?”

  Joel grinned. “I’d love to, but I’m not sure these swings are big enough for me.”

  Dixie spoke up then. “He can’t swing, Joel, because he can’t see. Remember? You go on and play now. I’ll be over in a minute. Just stay in sight.”

  Joel helped Clark get down off his lap. “Later, pal.”

  “’Kay, Joe.”

  He listened to the boy run off toward the playground, which was quite close by, as Joel had chosen a bench on its perimeter. Tamping down his anger, he raised his face and asked calmly, “How’ve you been?”

  She answered him with an abrupt question of her own. “Should you be out here by yourself?”

  Joel set his back teeth. So that was how it was going to be. First, he couldn’t swing because he couldn’t see. Now this. “I don’t need a keeper, thank you very much.”

  “How did you get here, anyway? Surely your mother didn’t just drop you off.”

  “My mother is at her part-time job. I get around on my own, just as you do.”

  “But it’s not like you can drive a car.”

  “I don’t have to drive. There are excellent aids to help me navigate. I walked here from Mom’s today with nothing more than a folding cane.” He pulled it from his pocket to show it to her. “Which I didn’t have to use, by the way.”

  “Why do you come here?” she asked, ignoring his explanation. “Can’t you sit in the sun at home?”

  Joel struck a nonchalant pose, one elbow balanced on the edge of the bench back. “I come here several times a week to run,” he told her, “and, yes, sometimes just to sit in the sun and listen to my lectures. Do you have a problem with that, Dixie?”

  “To run?” she echoed uncertainly, ignoring everything else.

  “Yeah, you know, like those two people on that jogging trail over there.”

  A pause followed, during which he suspected she was checking out the jogging trail.

  “How do you know there are two runners?”

  “I heard two distinct strides when they ran by here a few minutes ago.”

  “Hmph. How do I know someone didn’t tell you there were two?”

  His jaw dropped. Why, he wondered, was she being so insulting? Maybe she thought it would offend him so badly that he would start avoiding her. Or maybe she just needed to convince herself that he wasn’t a whole man. That smarted. More than it should have.

  “Maybe you think I wear this gear by accident?” he snapped sarcastically, waving a hand to indicate his tracksuit and running shoes. “You probably think I can’t even dress myself.”

  “Well, if you’re going to be disagreeable…”

  “If I’m going to be disagreeable?” But he already knew that he was talking to air. He could hear her footsteps carrying her away.

  He sat where he was, wounded and angry, for several minutes. Then he got up and left the park. He felt the pavement of the sidewalk beneath his feet before he remembered to count his steps. Fortunately, he was familiar enough with the area by now that it was just a matter of locating the curb with his cane and turning in the right direction for home. Dealing with Dixie after this was going to take a good deal more thought, but deal he would. And so would she.

  For the second time in Dixie’s memory, prayer did not diminish her guilt. Sadly, nothing could change the fact that she was responsible for her husband’s death, but she had expected to feel a little better, at least, about how she’d dealt with Joel Slade in the park. Unfortunately, such was not the case. Prayer only seemed to deepen her regret.

  Driving toward her parents’ place that Friday, Dixie admitted to herself that she still didn’t know why she’d treated Joel as if he were a delusional invalid that day. She was not by nature a cruel person; yet, she had intentionally attacked Joel’s pride. She’d seen him sitting there, looking whole and handsome and entirely capable, and she’d panicked. That was the only way she could describe what she’d felt: panic.

  At the time, she had tried to justify her actions by telling herself that he’d been entirely open and nonchalant about his blindness the last time they’d talked. So why shouldn’t she say what she was thinking, right? Except, she’d known in some perverse part of herself what she was doing. She just didn’t really know why. True, she had hoped not to run into Joel again, but that did not really explain her reaction to seeing Joel there that day.

  She was so disturbed by her own behavior that she hadn’t been back to the park since and, after dropping off Clark at a popular Mothers’ Day Out program, was now headed over to speak to her father about removing the tree from her backyard and rebuilding the swing set. Then she wouldn’t have to worry about bumping into Joel Slade again.

  At least something good had come of all her prayers since that day, Dixie told herself. In the midst of confessing her sin, she had suddenly recalled a Scripture read at Mark’s funeral, Hebrews 12:22–24.

  “But you have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, to the church of the first-born, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the judge of all men, to the spirits of righteous men made perfect, to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.”

  On the day of the funeral, all those words had meant to her was that her husband was no longer with her and their son. Now she finally, completely understood that he was not just apart from her; he was physically with
Jesus, in the joyful company of countless angels, in the very presence of almighty God. Moreover, after thinking about that Scripture in the context of the other verses, she understood that prayer took her spirit to the very same place, a place where she, too, would one day physically dwell. She found that profoundly comforting, despite the guilt that tormented her.

  Pushing aside thoughts of Mark and Joel Slade, Dixie parked the car behind her dad’s diesel pickup truck and got out. It was a glorious day of crystalline sunshine and warm, soft air, the perfect day to be outside, so she wasn’t surprised to find the house empty. She walked on through to the patio door, which stood ajar, and stepped out onto the flagstones, seeing her mother at once. Vonnie stood behind one of the chaise longues arranged around a glass-topped table in the center of the space. She was balancing a serving tray that contained two glasses of iced tea.

  “Hey, guys. Enjoying this fabulous weather, I see.”

  Sam rose from one of the chaises. “Sugar lump! Wasn’t expecting you.”

  She opened her mouth to reply, and nearly fainted when Joel Slade calmly rose from the next chaise, a glass of tea in his hand.

  “Hello, Dixie. I’ve been hoping for a chance to talk to you.” He held out the glass. “Vonnie, would you mind?”

  “Not at all,” Vonnie mumbled, reaching for the tumbler.

  “Where’s Clark?” Joel asked, feeling his way around the chaise toward Dixie.

  “P-playing with some friends,” Dixie managed.

  Joel smiled, and in the instant before his hand latched on to her arm, she realized that he’d located her by the sound of her voice. “Excuse us,” he said, towing her straight toward the house.

  Dixie threw a helpless look at her parents, but they were too busy waggling their eyebrows at each other to notice. Joel put out his free hand and found the wall of the house, then he abruptly changed direction. It dawned on her where he was headed only a split second before they turned the corner. She heard him counting under his breath. When he got to ten, he stopped.